Tubing is used in many medical procedures in particular surgical drains and feeding tubes. Surgical drains are used following a wide variety of invasive surgeries to allow for drainage of matter and/or debris from the surgical area. Representative surgeries include breast surgery, cosmetic surgery, orthopedic surgery, radical neck procedures, thyroidectomy surgery, cardiothoracic surgery and general surgery. The fluid build-up may cause swelling and pooling of blood and fluid resulting in discomfort to patient, or may lead to infection and may delay or prevent healing of the surgical site. Consequently, a surgical drain, typically a flexible tube, is placed with one end in the surgical site and the other end outside of the patient and may stay in place for one to three weeks after surgery. The matter and/or debris being drained includes mostly viscous fluids such as pus, serum and blood, etc. but may also include some solid or semi-solid matter such as clots and other debris which may solidify within the tube thereby blocking flow from the drain. Feeding tubes are used to deliver food when the patient is unable to eat normally by mouth, is unable to swallow safely, or needs nutritional supplementation. Over time the feeding tube may tend to clog with debris of coagulated food particles.
To prevent the blockages before they form or clear them after they form, the surgical drain tube or feeding tube may need to be changed or cleared. For surgical drains, the standard process for clearing or “unclogging” the drains, or maintaining “drain patency,” is to instruct the patient to “milk” the drain, which means to squeeze the drain between two fingers and in so doing, pull the matter down the drain away from the body. However, there are several problems with this method. First, it is uncomfortable at the surgical site, where the drain is sutured to skin, for the patient who is still recovering from surgery. Also, it may be difficult physically to perform the task if the patient has arthritis which affects their ability to grip the drain, or if the drain is located in an area that is difficult for the patient to reach. In addition, it is time consuming especially if several drains need to be cleared. Further, patients do not do it effectively or they do not do it with the frequency instructed because they are concerned with dislodging the drain from the surgical site. Moreover, the constant pulling of the flexible tubing stretches it, resulting in an unnecessarily long and inconvenient length or the need for replacement. For feeding tubes, patients are often instructed to “milk” the drain from the exterior to help release clogs or blockages of material inside the tube. This is problematic for several of the same reasons cited above, such as ineffectiveness of the procedure, lack of patient compliance, and stretching of the tube. A blocked feeding tube may require the patient to undergo an additional surgical procedure to replace the tube, resulting in further burden to the patient as well as additional costs.
Commercially available devices have attempted to deal with the foregoing problems. However, they are awkward to use, less appealing to the patient and their relative effectiveness is yet untested.
Accordingly, there is a need for a device and method for clearing drains that: effectively moves the contents of the tube or drain through from the exterior, requires very little dexterity and/or effort by the patient, expedites movement of the tube through the device as it performs the clearing function, does not stretch the tube, minimizes the risk of pulling the surgical drain out of the surgical site, can be used by one hand, can be sterilized using gamma radiation, is cost effective, and can reliably solve the aforementioned problems.